A particularly desirable product for the baking industry would be a consumer product having reduced calories. It would also be desirable to have a consumer product having increased dietary fiber and increased proteins relative to typical baked consumer products. Unfortunately, most attempts, to prepare such products have been less than fully acceptable to consumers. Specifically, the drawbacks of the present reduced calorie or high-fiber bakery products have been short shelf life and poor crumb quality within such baked product. The preparation of such products has relied upon the addition of atypical bakery ingredients. For example, one atypical bakery ingredient used to increase the dietary fiber of the final product is oat fiber. Oat fiber, however, does not produce a particularly acceptable consumer product nor does it constitute significant protein. The use of bi-products of ethanol production, such as distillers dried grains and brewers spent grain, have been known for years as suitable animal food products. More recently, attempts to modify the traditional processing of starch from cereal grains to provide both an economical feed stock for alcohol production and a more useful by-product have met with mixed success. For a discussion for the use of distillers dried and brewers spent grains in human food, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,846 to Rasco, et al which is hereby incorporated by reference. The Rasco patent process modifies the traditional treatment of cereal grain in order to achieve a more palatable by-product after fermentation. It should be particularly emphasized that in the Rasco process, the by-product is exposed to the alcohol produced by yeast during fermentation.
European Patent Application No. 231,729 by Bergkvist, et al discloses sweet syrup production from cereal grains treated with alpha-amylase. Note that the objective in the Bergkvist disclosure is the maximization of sugar syrup production from the grain.
The Thacker, et al patents, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,061,497 and 5,106,634, both also incorporated by reference herein, disclose the exhaustive enzymatic solubilization of the starch portion of grain by alpha-amylase and centrifugation of the reduced starch grain residue away from the solubilized starch solution prior to fermentation. A portion of the solubilized starch solution remains with the solid grain residue and upon drying becomes a coating on the residue. The coating tends to improve the organoleptic properties of the residue and therefore enhances its usefulness in the food industry, particularly the baking industry. Thacker recommended drying at a non-scorching temperature preferably below 75.degree. C. (167.degree. F.). Unfortunately, although the dried product may be used in baking, the process details of the Thacker invention result in a quality control problem. For that reason, the dried product tends to be highly variable and allows for considerable improvement in quality and consistency. Even the best product of the Thacker process provides only a moderate achievement of the desired goal of a low calorie, high-fiber, high quality baked consumer product.
It would be particularly useful to further advance over the organoleptic properties of the Thacker-type products. In the invention described subsequently, advances in selection of the sugar solution composition resulting from the enzymatic degradation, processing, and heat treatment allows major advances in the baking industry.